Ahead of Friday's homegrown World Cup qualifier, Dalglish bemoans the state of Scottish football, while Savage wants revenge for Joe Jordan's own 'hand of God'

Dalglish: Days of Scotland qualifying for five successive World Cups are long gone

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Back i the day: Kenny Dalglish plays against Wales in 1977

When I played for Scotland against Wales at Anfield in 1977, the stakes were higher than they will be on Friday when the two teams meet in Cardiff.

Back then, we were playing for a place in the 1978 World Cup finals in Argentina. We grabbed it but it was close.

On Friday night, it’s different.

There’s still pressure but a lot of it is on managers Craig Levein and Chris Coleman because of bad starts to the World Cup qualifying campaign.

Wales are bottom of Group A. Scotland have two points from the first two games and few expect them to make it to the finals in Brazil in 2014.

I was lucky. I played at a time when Scotland qualified for five World Cups on the run.

I had played alongside Denis Law and Billy Bremner in front of 100,000 fans at Hampden Park when we beat Czechoslovakia to qualify for the 1974 tournament.

So I knew how enjoyable it would be if we managed to get past Wales in that game at Anfield in 1977.

I had joined Liverpool a couple of months earlier so when we won 2-0 in a tight game and I scored a late header, it was a special night.

Scotland have not qualified for a World Cup since 1998 and it is difficult to pinpoint what went wrong.

Part of it was that the financial penalties for dropping out of the top division became so great that Scottish clubs were increasingly desperate to safeguard their status.

They moved towards bringing players in from abroad to try to do that and opportunities for Scottish players became more limited.

That situation was exacerbated when Scottish football was reorganised so that the Premier League only had ten teams, subsequently changed to 12.

When I was a young player at Celtic, there were 18 clubs in the top division and the leading sides often gave young players a chance against the lesser teams.

That happened to me. I made my league debut against Raith Rovers in 1969. I was an 18-year-old kid playing in the league for a team that had won the European Cup a couple of years earlier.

Jeff J Mitchell

Hands tied: Craig Levein doesn't have the players to choose from

When the number of teams in the top division was drastically reduced, it wasn’t as easy for the leading sides to throw the youngsters in.

There was more at stake in every game. That meant fewer opportunities for young players, too, at the same time as there was an influx of players from abroad.

Scottish clubs have been moving in the right direction again recently and are bringing more of their own players through.

But the demotion of Rangers to the Third Division hasn’t helped the process because they were one of those in the forefront of the new drive to develop young players.

A win for Scotland would be a huge boost. It would breathe a bit of confidence back into their qualifying campaign.

But the reality remains that Levein does not have a wide enough talent pool to draw upon.

Things are improving but the days of qualifying for five World Cups in succession still seem an awfully long way away.

Kenny Dalglish writes for the Daily Mirror in association with The Football Pools. Founded in Liverpool in 1923. The Football Pools is celebrating its 90th anniversary this season.

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Savage: It's time Wales made them pay for 35 years of hurt

Daily Record

Blatant: Joe Jordan's handball against Wales 1977

It's time for the Welsh dragon to breathe fire again - and to make Scotland pay for 35 years of hurt.

Although I am too young to remember seeing it live, I’ve watched replays of Joe Jordan’s blatant handball at Anfield in 1977 enough times to understand why a lot of Welshmen still bear a grudge over it.

Jordan’s handiwork, and the penalty Scotland were wrongly awarded that night, is the main reason Wales have not qualified for a World Cup in more than half a century.

Eight years later, we were denied by another penalty at Ninian Park, although that paled into insignificance on the night Jock Stein tragically passed away.

If revenge is a dish best served late, I’ll settle for a Wales win - however it comes - to relieve the pressure on my mate Chris Coleman.

Whichever way you look at it, this is a game about two managers under pressure. Whoever loses can forget about going to Brazil in 2014.

Is Coleman the right man for the Wales job?

For me, he is - if passion is the currency we use to measure our managers, you couldn’t meet a more passionate Welshman.

And he should not be held responsible alone if another generation of Wales players fail to make it to a major tournament, because it’s been the same story for 50 years.

Neville Southall, Ian Rush, Mark Hughes, Kevin Ratcliffe and Ryan Giggs were all world-class players, but they never made it to a World Cup or a European championship, so the current situation is not of Coleman’s making.

He has a midfield nucleus most international managers would love - Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen. But unfortunately, there is not enough firepower at one end of the pitch and not enough defensive stability at the other to maximise their talents.

I was surprised to hear Coleman has taken the armband off Ramsey and handed the captaincy to Ashley Williams, who has made a few costly mistakes for Swansea this season.

To be fair, Williams and James Collins were rock-solid at the back during Gary Speed’s reign, and Wales need to restore that firm base after the six-goal hammering in Serbia which made them a laughing stock.

But I’m not sure where the goals are going to come from.

Steve Morison, Robert Earnshaw and Sam Vokes have not even been regular starters for their club sides, and ‘Earnie’ has had to move out to Israel to get a game for Maccabi Tel Aviv.

For me, this match is all about who is bold enough.

I hope Coleman goes 4-3-3, plays on the front foot and the Welsh dragon breathes fire. They might as well go for it, they have nothing to lose.

And they will be in good company - goalscoring is Scotland’s big problem as well, mainly because their manager Craig Levein is not bold enough.

When Levein fielded that 4-6-0 formation in the Czech Republic last year, you could hear the Tartan Army cringe.

My hunch is that Levein’s caution will get the better of him again tonight, so this is an ideal opportunity for Wales to put one over the Scots.

It is only 13 months since Wales outplayed England at Wembley, and although things have unravelled for them since Gary’s death, in Gareth Bale they still have the one world-class player on the pitch who could make the difference.